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Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

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Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#61

Post by jsheard »

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz.

There is a community of modders developing patches to turn SlowROM games into FastROM games to alleviate slowdown. I read somewhere that some SlowROM games appear to have been developed for FastROM in the first place, but were converted to SlowROM at the last minute due to penny-pinching demands by the publisher.

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#62

Post by easyThrowaway »

jsheard wrote: post #61

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz. There is a community of modders developing patches t…

Always wondered if that was just an arbitrary licensing distinction made up by nintendo or there were actual differences between carts data reading speeds. At the end of the day, all SNES carts sported mask roms.

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#63

Post by GaggiX »

jsheard wrote: post #61

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz. There is a community of modders developing patches t…

The article does mention LoRom and HiRom, I imagine you're talking about the same thing.

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#64

Post by sgarland »

eru wrote: post #38
HeckFeck wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nowadays a single game update can be around 20 GB Irrespective of the abundance of storage we now enjoy, and even though I could rationally understand the reasons, this will always make me raise an eyebrow or sigh.

You are just getting old. People used to have the same reaction to games that filled up an entire CD (or even multiple).

Eh, not the same. All the games I remember spanning multiple discs (Emperor: Battle for Dune took four, for example) were that large due to FMV cutscenes.

I understand that 3D textures are large files, but surely there is some hideous bloat occurring to cause the explosion in size.

And outside of games, the same bloat occurs, so it’s not just textures. “Let’s ship an entire browser rendering engine with our app” hasn’t exactly helped.

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#65

Post by jsheard »

GaggiX wrote: post #63
jsheard wrote: post #61

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz. There is a community of modders developing patches t…

The article does mention LoRom and HiRom, I imagine you're talking about the same thing.

No that's something else, LoROM and HiROM differ in how the ROM data is mapped into memory, while FastROM and SlowROM differ in the bus speed. You can have Lo/Slow, Lo/Fast, Hi/Slow or Hi/Fast carts.

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#66

Post by eru »

sgarland wrote: post #64
eru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just getting old. People used to have the same reaction to games that filled up an entire CD (or even multiple).

Eh, not the same. All the games I remember spanning multiple discs (Emperor: Battle for Dune took four, for example) were that large due to FMV cutscenes. I understand that 3D textures are large files, but surely there is some hideous bloat occurring to cause the explosion in size. And outside of games, the same bloat occurs, so it’s not just textures. “Let’s ship an entire browser rendering engine with our app” hasn…

Interestingly enough, Hitman (the remakes) slimmed down their installed size by the time Hitman 3 rolled around. They said that thanks to SSDs being around, they didn't have to optimize for the slow random read speeds of HDD anymore.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/oqb7jc/how_is_hitma...

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#67

Post by VS1999 »

eru wrote: post #38
HeckFeck wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nowadays a single game update can be around 20 GB Irrespective of the abundance of storage we now enjoy, and even though I could rationally understand the reasons, this will always make me raise an eyebrow or sigh.

You are just getting old. People used to have the same reaction to games that filled up an entire CD (or even multiple).

Maybe in 20 years people will be complaining about all games taking up 10 TB of space and we'll have people rationalizing the practice because people used to complain about 20 GB patches. Games coming on multiple CDs was a painful experience. Nobody likes that, and nobody liked day-one patches back when they were first introduced and now nobody likes 20 GB patches. Every generation hates pointless bloat.

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#68

Post by remlov »

jsheard wrote: post #61

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz. There is a community of modders developing patches t…

https://www.timeextension.com/guides/snes-fastrom-games-how-...

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#69

Post by beeboobaa3 »

jsheard wrote: post #61

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz. There is a community of modders developing patches t…

Was there any hardware reason for this, or was this just nintendo making gamers' lifes worse by gouging their customers?

Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges

#70

Post by jsheard »

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #69
jsheard wrote: post #61

Another detail not mentioned here is that even carts which didn't contain enhancement chips had different levels of performance - the SNES CPU nominally ran at 3.58mhz, but it would only actually run at that speed with a "FastROM" cart inserted. Nintendo also offered publishers a "SlowROM" cart format, which was cheaper, but would downclock the CPU to just 2.68mhz. There is a community of modders developing patches t…

Was there any hardware reason for this, or was this just nintendo making gamers' lifes worse by gouging their customers?

Ostensibly the reason is that the ROM chips have to run in lockstep with the CPU clock, so the CPU may need to be downclocked if cheaper ROM chips can't keep up with it, but I don't know what the actual cost difference would have been at the time, if any. Maybe all of the chips were capable of 3.58mhz and Nintendo was just gouging.
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